Trait anxiety does not correlate with metacognitive confidence or reminder usage in a delayed intentions task

Abstract

Setting external reminders provides a convenient way to reduce cognitive demand and ensure accurate retrieval of information for prospective tasks. Recent experimental evidence has demonstrated that the decision to offload cognitive information to external resources is guided by metacognitive belief, i.e. individuals’ confidence in their unaided ability. Other work has also suggested a relationship between metacognitive belief and trait anxiety. In the present study (N=300), we bridged these two areas by investigating whether trait anxiety correlated with metacognitive belief — and consequently — propensity to offload information in a delayed intentions paradigm. Participants received a financial reward based on their ability to remember targets. However, participants could take a reduced reward per target if they decided to use reminders. We replicated previous findings that participants were biased to use more reminders than would be optimal, and this bias was correlated with metacognitive judgements. However, we show no evidence that trait anxiety held a relationship with metacognitive belief or reminder usage. Indeed, Bayesian analyses strongly favoured the null. Therefore, variation in self-reported trait anxiety does not necessarily influence confidence and strategy when participants remember delayed intentions.

Anxiety and amygdala connectivity during movie-watching

“…Though the NIH toolbox offers a useful battery for a wide assessment of cognitive/affective domains, this was a computerized adaptive questionnaire that typically administers far fewer questions than more standardized anxiety questionnaires, such as the state-trait anxiety inventory ( Spielberger, 1983 ), which may be more appropriate for detecting subtle differences along the continuum of anxiety severity. It may also be plausible that the two dimensions of state vs trait anxiety may reveal dissociable effects, though we have previously noted these two measures (as assessed by questionnaires) correlate very highly (r = .83; see Kirk et al, 2021 ). Consequently, the dissociation of these may be further elucidated through correlations with both questionnaires and regressors marking tonal shifts throughout movie stimuli.…”

Outsourcing memory to external tools: A review of ‘intention offloading’

“…So a particular reminder-setting strategy such as always setting reminders when offered 6 points or higher might reflect an under-use of reminders for a participant with relatively poor memory, but an over-use of reminders for a participant with relatively good memory. Studies using this paradigm have consistently found evidence for a systematic bias: individuals tend to set reminders on a greater number of trials (and, equivalently, use internal memory on a smaller number of trials) than would be optimal (Ball et al, 2021;Engeler & Gilbert, 2020;Gilbert et al, 2020;Kirk et al, 2021;. Individual differences in this bias are stable over time (Gilbert et al, 2020, Experiment 1).…”

“…This review has summarised evidence pointing towards multiple factors, which we list in Table 1. However, there are undoubtedly additional factors that have not yet been investigated fully, for example individual differences in personality or cognitive style (see Kirk et al, 2021), the influence of neurodevelopmental conditions (see Cherkaoui & Gilbert, 2017), and sociocultural effects.…”

Optimal cognitive offloading: Increased reminder usage but reduced pro-reminder bias in older adults

“…This allowed investigation not only of whether or not individuals choose to set reminders, but also of how these choices compare with the optimal strategy for the task. Studies using this paradigm have shown that individuals typically have a pro-reminder bias, choosing to use external reminders more often than would be optimal (Ball et al, 2021;Engeler & Gilbert, 2020;Gilbert et al, 2020;Kirk et al, 2021;. This bias is stable over time (Gilbert et al, 2020) and correlates with metacognitive evaluations: individuals who are underconfident in their memory ability tend to show a stronger pro-reminder bias (Engeler & Gilbert, 2020;Gilbert et al, 2020;Kirk et al, 2021).…”

“…NB these accuracy and performance-based criteria were based on the same criteria used in previous investigations using the same task (e.g. Kirk et al, 2021).…”